Elisabeth Murawski
"Twist"
Elisabeth Murawski


Twist

They did it together,
mother and lover, snow

on his boots, frost
on the glass.

Made in December
an Indian summer baby.

The clever man,
no stranger to our house,

stole half the family tree
I thought was mine.

Suddenly, in a station
of the Metro,

I am weeping. Years
after a child has died,

grief arrives in a rush
like a train from the underworld.

Also by Elisabeth Murawski: "Intermezzo"

photo: James O'Gara

Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Alias Irene, Heiress and Zorba’s Daughter (May Swenson Poetry Award). Still Life with Timex won the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. Her chapbook Voyage to the End won the 2025 James Tate Prize. A native of Chicago, she currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

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